Nic Rhodes
Distinguished Member
Video Cables [MEGA LONG] All you need to know?
Inspired several things, I decided to write the following article:
The general lack of understanding of what it is needed for a cable, I have tried to capture what is required on cables / wire in each area and recommend the best raw off the reel cables I know of. I am not endorsing any commercial finished product like Chord, IXOS, QED but trying to educate people how to make the near perfect cable for a specific application that will satisfy most if not all. I will steer you towards commercial off the reel cables I feel are without peer and could be the basis of your cable needs. You will need to buy these / find someone who uses them to take advantage of this performance You can then go away and buy cables, informed with what I at least think important (and professional broadcaster, cable manufacturers etc etc). I would welcome any serious input from others to widen the debate further. This is NOT to say that other manufacturers dont also make great products, I am sure they do, but I have sourced cables from the large cable manufacturers (who supply most people anyway) rather than the audio / video brands mentioned above.
Please dont flame me just because you use xxxx brand (substitute you favourite here) and it works in your system. Please have a pop if your cable outperforms the basic stuff I am recommending here and you have both to try at home and let us know why it is better than my suggestion. I will be the first to try it out in my never ending quest for the ultimate. I have said repeatedly here, I also want to learn and welcome all inputs, expert to amateur. I am NOT telling you what to buy but I am hopefully advising / steering / helping you with what is important (technically), and what works (or what I think is important). This is VERY different to telling people to buy IXOS etc. The stuff I am suggesting you look at is I believe of the HIGHEST quality (and I mean TOP) but it will surprize many just how little it cost to do correctly, certainly less than most of you currently spend. It is, I think, an upgrade to what most people currently use. If you dont agree please say so WITH the reasons why you disagree having tried what I am endorsing. I can easily live with that as an informed opinion but what I dont want to hear is brand X works great for me. It helps no one.
There is way to much part information out there and hopefully this will give you ALL you need to buy a cable for you application. There is way too much RG X is all you need, when what you need to know is why RG X version A is SOO much better than version B. [The devil is in the detail] I am as guilty as anyone on this so hopefully this corrects this. I get so fed up when I see people say for the demanding application, say video leads all you need is RG 6 cable with a 3 GHz bandwidth. This is a classic example of either some luck or only partial understanding of the problem involved with cables for this application. Sure the ultimate cable may have an RG 6 designation with 3Ghz capability but these are NOT what we should be interested in (even the best crimp RCA plugs only have a 200 MHZ bandwidth!!!!!). We should be much more concerned with low capacitance, a linear 75 Ohm CI (Characteristic Impedance) along the WHOLE cable and excellent screening capabilities. The hard truth is MOST RG 6 do NOT met these specifications, particularly in the CI profile down a cable. The cables I will point you to DO meet these exacting criteria. The cables are designed for no compromises but luckily are affordable and once again I will say there are always other solutions out there from commercial companies. All I would ask is are you SURE your current cable can compete?
But what really bugged me was when an audiophile cable company (actually just a plug soldering company when I knew then best) complained we werent taking cables seriously when we had a recent Event. The truth couldnt have been further from the truth, we were using some of the best cables we knew about but they werent from the said company X. Mind you they were particularly slow in coming forward to help, I wonder why?
I work for NO cable company or AV company so I make NO money from any of this. [This always comes up!] I leave it to others. I am just explaining what you need to know in order to get a great performing cable at a great price.
I will try and cover:
The basic of cables (in general), electric and physical
Analogue video cables
Digital video cables
I have included balanced cables so people understand how these work (wrt noise)
This by definition might also cover what you need to know for most of the other leads. You make you own extrapolations here though It may surprize many just how high performance video cables also make great other leads (but not the other way round). I will talk about sub woofer cables though as I think this is an under discussed topic and needs special attention.
So the emphasis is on digital (SDI) video and analogue video.
Mains issues and mains cables as they are closely related will be dealt with later and I will spin this off into its own thread if there is interest but this will take time.
Cables can make a difference, in fact they can make a great difference but if there is a difference in two cables then chances are one is probably not doing something correctly in the first place. Top performing cable is NOT expensive and the cables I am recommending are all basically only a £1- 4/ m (or similar) to which they need to be terminated etc. (I will cover that as well). I believe they will outperform or equal ANYTHING I have ever tested here. Just for the record I have many examples here I have had on test and these include many of the usual suspects including silver, optical and carbon cables in addition to the copper based stuff I will talk about here. If anyone met me at The Event 11, the scaler room (and bits elsewhere) were cabled with some of my collection. I basically came to the Event 11 with 1/3 of my stock of cables and it filled the boot of a family saloon!! These are not wide, unsubstantiated results, it is what I believe works best in each situation. In fact if you look at more innovative cable suppliers on the forums, you may notice some simularities. I make no claims for originality, many other have discovered this before me and after me. They do work though and work very well. I thought it a good time to pull it all together.
This was an oddessy that start out with me learning how to make balanced digital cables for small money, it has evolved into an obsession.
Remember Do everything in Excess even Excess
Pre amble over so:
Inspired several things, I decided to write the following article:
The general lack of understanding of what it is needed for a cable, I have tried to capture what is required on cables / wire in each area and recommend the best raw off the reel cables I know of. I am not endorsing any commercial finished product like Chord, IXOS, QED but trying to educate people how to make the near perfect cable for a specific application that will satisfy most if not all. I will steer you towards commercial off the reel cables I feel are without peer and could be the basis of your cable needs. You will need to buy these / find someone who uses them to take advantage of this performance You can then go away and buy cables, informed with what I at least think important (and professional broadcaster, cable manufacturers etc etc). I would welcome any serious input from others to widen the debate further. This is NOT to say that other manufacturers dont also make great products, I am sure they do, but I have sourced cables from the large cable manufacturers (who supply most people anyway) rather than the audio / video brands mentioned above.
Please dont flame me just because you use xxxx brand (substitute you favourite here) and it works in your system. Please have a pop if your cable outperforms the basic stuff I am recommending here and you have both to try at home and let us know why it is better than my suggestion. I will be the first to try it out in my never ending quest for the ultimate. I have said repeatedly here, I also want to learn and welcome all inputs, expert to amateur. I am NOT telling you what to buy but I am hopefully advising / steering / helping you with what is important (technically), and what works (or what I think is important). This is VERY different to telling people to buy IXOS etc. The stuff I am suggesting you look at is I believe of the HIGHEST quality (and I mean TOP) but it will surprize many just how little it cost to do correctly, certainly less than most of you currently spend. It is, I think, an upgrade to what most people currently use. If you dont agree please say so WITH the reasons why you disagree having tried what I am endorsing. I can easily live with that as an informed opinion but what I dont want to hear is brand X works great for me. It helps no one.
There is way to much part information out there and hopefully this will give you ALL you need to buy a cable for you application. There is way too much RG X is all you need, when what you need to know is why RG X version A is SOO much better than version B. [The devil is in the detail] I am as guilty as anyone on this so hopefully this corrects this. I get so fed up when I see people say for the demanding application, say video leads all you need is RG 6 cable with a 3 GHz bandwidth. This is a classic example of either some luck or only partial understanding of the problem involved with cables for this application. Sure the ultimate cable may have an RG 6 designation with 3Ghz capability but these are NOT what we should be interested in (even the best crimp RCA plugs only have a 200 MHZ bandwidth!!!!!). We should be much more concerned with low capacitance, a linear 75 Ohm CI (Characteristic Impedance) along the WHOLE cable and excellent screening capabilities. The hard truth is MOST RG 6 do NOT met these specifications, particularly in the CI profile down a cable. The cables I will point you to DO meet these exacting criteria. The cables are designed for no compromises but luckily are affordable and once again I will say there are always other solutions out there from commercial companies. All I would ask is are you SURE your current cable can compete?
But what really bugged me was when an audiophile cable company (actually just a plug soldering company when I knew then best) complained we werent taking cables seriously when we had a recent Event. The truth couldnt have been further from the truth, we were using some of the best cables we knew about but they werent from the said company X. Mind you they were particularly slow in coming forward to help, I wonder why?
I work for NO cable company or AV company so I make NO money from any of this. [This always comes up!] I leave it to others. I am just explaining what you need to know in order to get a great performing cable at a great price.
I will try and cover:
The basic of cables (in general), electric and physical
Analogue video cables
Digital video cables
I have included balanced cables so people understand how these work (wrt noise)
This by definition might also cover what you need to know for most of the other leads. You make you own extrapolations here though It may surprize many just how high performance video cables also make great other leads (but not the other way round). I will talk about sub woofer cables though as I think this is an under discussed topic and needs special attention.
So the emphasis is on digital (SDI) video and analogue video.
Mains issues and mains cables as they are closely related will be dealt with later and I will spin this off into its own thread if there is interest but this will take time.
Cables can make a difference, in fact they can make a great difference but if there is a difference in two cables then chances are one is probably not doing something correctly in the first place. Top performing cable is NOT expensive and the cables I am recommending are all basically only a £1- 4/ m (or similar) to which they need to be terminated etc. (I will cover that as well). I believe they will outperform or equal ANYTHING I have ever tested here. Just for the record I have many examples here I have had on test and these include many of the usual suspects including silver, optical and carbon cables in addition to the copper based stuff I will talk about here. If anyone met me at The Event 11, the scaler room (and bits elsewhere) were cabled with some of my collection. I basically came to the Event 11 with 1/3 of my stock of cables and it filled the boot of a family saloon!! These are not wide, unsubstantiated results, it is what I believe works best in each situation. In fact if you look at more innovative cable suppliers on the forums, you may notice some simularities. I make no claims for originality, many other have discovered this before me and after me. They do work though and work very well. I thought it a good time to pull it all together.
This was an oddessy that start out with me learning how to make balanced digital cables for small money, it has evolved into an obsession.
Remember Do everything in Excess even Excess
Pre amble over so: